Boris, by-elections & the bubble

Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to get a table outside one of my favourite pubs, The Alma, in Wandsworth. After playing golf with some friends, I was introduced to a friend of one of said friends who happened to be from Hartlepool. Being the innate politico I am, I bit my tongue for as long as I could about the impending by-election in the man’s hometown and instead enjoyed my Guinness.

I was therefore relieved when the conversation veered naturally towards this topic without my forced intervention. The man in question is a serving member of the British Army. His father was also a member of the British Army. Both, he said, identified as “normal Labour voters”. That was, until Boris came along and reshaped British political geography.

The past month has been dominated by problematic headlines for the Prime Minister. The Cameron/Greensill scandal lurched into a wider debate about cash for access via the refurbishment of the flat above No. 11 Downing Street, where the Prime Minister and his fiancée reside. The heralded coup de grace came in the form of revelations from the Prime Minister’s former consigliere, Dominic Cummings, who claimed Boris had decreed “let the bodies pile high in their thousands” in response to the prospect of a third lockdown. The fact this turned out to be an empty threat was lost on the Westminster media reporting on the story. It was an assumed narrative that this was a perilous moment for the PM.

And yet, we sit here on the morning of Friday 7th May with the Conservatives having won the Hartlepool by-election. The party also looks set to hold the Teesside mayoralty and, if Andy Street repeats the trick in the West Midlands, the headlines will suddenly scream of a perfect hat-trick for Boris.

So why did the supposed crises of the last month have little to no bearing on the electorate? I am reminded of a great scene in Brexit: The Uncivil War, the television retelling of the EU referendum featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Dominic Cummings. Cummings visits, of all places, a pub to talk to voters. He shrugs off the protestations of the team around him, who implore him to instead study polls and focus group results as they feel for their key campaign message. Cummings laughs and informs them that to really understand what people think, the answer is simple. Go to a pub. Buy someone a drink. And listen.

I dare say the Westminster bubble has still not followed this advice. When we see politicians and journalists talk to ‘real voters’, it is nearly always in manufactured settings for pre-arranged photo ops. When voters do occasionally go off-piste (see Gillian Duffy and Brenda from Bristol), the media tends to either shriek or laugh. But rarely does it listen. Cummings, for all his faults, understood that the first rule of politics is to listen, as only then can you truly understand what voters want.

And so back to the pub. I listened to the man from Hartlepool. We talked about rugby, his experience in the army, how we knew our mutual friend and many other topics. When we did move on to politics, I asked him why he planned to vote Conservative and not Labour. His response was simple: “I like Boris.” When asked if the recent headlines had coloured his thinking, he responded: “How does some wallpaper make any difference to Hartlepool?”

What does this tell us about the state of British politics and our PM? Firstly, there is always an element of controversy priced in with Boris. People identify with his roguishness; an inability to meet the standard of perfection that we expect from our politicians. What people have always liked about Boris is his focus on action. Building more homes in London, green-lighting HS2, getting Brexit done. The latest addition to this list is the success of the vaccine roll out and it was clearly this – and not talk of Westminster wallpaper – that was ringing in the ears of voters when they went to the polls.

The challenge that lies ahead is one of delivery. Boris has three years to show his newfound supporters that he has made good on the promises he’s made. Guiding the economy through a turbulent COVID recovery, delivering on the levelling up agenda and making significant progress on net zero will be crucial. And if you want to know how the Prime Minister is fairing in these quests, you could do worse than a trip to your local with an open mind. Something we can all raise a glass to in these strange times.